Monday, June 9th
We pulled into Douentza somewhere around 4 AM, and I got off the bus and dryheaved for a few minutes. I felt like total hell. It was getting light when we got our baggage and made it back to Jeff’s house in town.
His house is nice, by Malian standards, or maybe average. Mud stucco walls surrounding a dirt courtyard, no flush toilet, a few concrete rooms inside, one even with air conditioning! Although the "AC Room for the Females on the Project" seems to actually be an office. Abbie and I did call dibbs on sleeping in it that morning. I took a bucket bath, the only shower available here, and slept for a few hours after having a cola to calm my stomach.
Woke up feeling much better. We had breakfast, then went and got some supplies in town. It’s not a big town, and feels like an overgrown village. Sand roads (there is so much dust and sand here), trash in the streets, mud brick houses, small shops, women selling spices on the ground until shacks, but it really has a nice feel to it. The people here are wonderful. You aren’t even really hassled or stared out that much, nothing like in India. You hear "toobob" all around, meaning "white person", but it’s not that big of an issue.
Abbie, who knows Fulfulde, was greeting people left and right, chatting, having a grand old time; I just went ahead with Jeff, who refuses to learn Fulfulde since he thinks that then he’ll be held to native standards of cultural understanding and just wants to be the crazy old white guy. Hey, to each his own.
I bought some spices so I can cook for myself, and we picked up some other goods as well, like kettles and water jugs.
Jeff has a woman cook food and bring it to us for our meals. We had rice with a sauce with cabbage and potatoes for lunch, which was quite good, though in this heat, you don’t have much of an appetite. In the afternoon, Jeff, Minkailou and I walked through the heat across town to where Ramata (TBD if that’s the right name), the high school Tommo-So speaking girl I will be working with, lived with her family. We met and arranged for her to come here the next morning so I could begin work with her. She seems nice but shy. I’m sure we’ll get to know each other in the coming months, though.
I got a cell phone yesterday, too! Call me! Though sometimes it can be hard to get a line into Mali, so be persistent. My number is:
223 524 7352
The 223 is the country code.
Dinner was chicken and fries (I don’t understand how there are so many fries). The meat is quite good, slaughtered probably immediately before being cooked, so way more fresh than anything in the US. I’m not used to just getting a hunk of bird, though, skin, bones, fresh, saucy. My former vegetarian self would be horrified by me ripping little pieces of meat off the bone with my fingers. After dinner, we had some mango slices. The mangoes here are the most delicious I have ever tasted. By comparison, mangoes are just really really bad in the US.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Bamako-Douentza, Part II
Sunday, June 8th
We all piled out of the bus and someone laid a mat out on the ground on the side of the road, so we lay down. Under the stars I tried to get some sleep. I felt very peaceful for a while. When the call to prayer began at 4 AM and I realized I had hardly slept, I got in a much worse mood. When we were still there when it was light with no signs of leaving, I was quite grouchy indeed. It was hot, I was dirty, and I was tired as hell from no good night’s sleep since I left home.
We ended up there until 2 in the afternoon. The bus had an oil leak and they spent hours trying to fix it. We thought a relief bus would come for a while, but it didn’t. Later in the morning, I was feeling much more relaxed, maybe because I had resigned myself to my fate of never reaching Douentza. We bought a mango and sliced it up, sat in the shade of a shack while Abbie carried on in Fulfulde with all of the people from the bus. I learned a word or two, including one with an implosive ‘d’ (Doiru, cough), and just relaxed.
The bus ride from then on out was hell. It was daytime now, and whatever breeze that was marginally cool at night was hot. That’s when there was a breeze. By this time, we were all so dirty and sweaty, but it didn’t even matter; since everyone was, you couldn’t even smell it. The bus was so slow, too, and continued with the frequent stops.
We shouldn’t made it to Sevare by 7, but we didn’t get there until around midnight, I suppose. Right before we got in, there was a police checkpoint, and this asshole policeman decided to check people’s papers, so we had to pull out our passports. This is when I realized that my passport, which had been in a moneybelt around my waste, had gotten soaked through with sweat, warped, and little blue dots had appeared all over the main page of it from bleeding through the cover. Great work, US government, way to make a durable important document. At that point, I was starving, tired, thirsty, hot, and frustrated, and I just cried. I couldn’t help it. Abbie comforted me, and I eventually stopped, and we got off the bus in Sevare.
We went over and got some food at this little stand, and I was convinced I would get food poisoning. I bet the food had been sitting for some time, so I didn’t get the meat, just the potatoes, but the woman still spooned unknown meat sauce all over it. I still had tears in my eyes as I worked at the potatoes, but I was so hungry I couldn’t even eat, if that makes sense.
When we got back on the bus to go to Douentza, I didn’t feel very good. I started to feel nauseous. I just sat with my head on a pillow between my legs and dozed as the roads got worse and worse. It was the bumpiest, most pothole filled road I’ve ever been on. And one of my laptops was in my suitcase on top of the bus, which had been sitting in the heat for two days.
We all piled out of the bus and someone laid a mat out on the ground on the side of the road, so we lay down. Under the stars I tried to get some sleep. I felt very peaceful for a while. When the call to prayer began at 4 AM and I realized I had hardly slept, I got in a much worse mood. When we were still there when it was light with no signs of leaving, I was quite grouchy indeed. It was hot, I was dirty, and I was tired as hell from no good night’s sleep since I left home.
We ended up there until 2 in the afternoon. The bus had an oil leak and they spent hours trying to fix it. We thought a relief bus would come for a while, but it didn’t. Later in the morning, I was feeling much more relaxed, maybe because I had resigned myself to my fate of never reaching Douentza. We bought a mango and sliced it up, sat in the shade of a shack while Abbie carried on in Fulfulde with all of the people from the bus. I learned a word or two, including one with an implosive ‘d’ (Doiru, cough), and just relaxed.
The bus ride from then on out was hell. It was daytime now, and whatever breeze that was marginally cool at night was hot. That’s when there was a breeze. By this time, we were all so dirty and sweaty, but it didn’t even matter; since everyone was, you couldn’t even smell it. The bus was so slow, too, and continued with the frequent stops.
We shouldn’t made it to Sevare by 7, but we didn’t get there until around midnight, I suppose. Right before we got in, there was a police checkpoint, and this asshole policeman decided to check people’s papers, so we had to pull out our passports. This is when I realized that my passport, which had been in a moneybelt around my waste, had gotten soaked through with sweat, warped, and little blue dots had appeared all over the main page of it from bleeding through the cover. Great work, US government, way to make a durable important document. At that point, I was starving, tired, thirsty, hot, and frustrated, and I just cried. I couldn’t help it. Abbie comforted me, and I eventually stopped, and we got off the bus in Sevare.
We went over and got some food at this little stand, and I was convinced I would get food poisoning. I bet the food had been sitting for some time, so I didn’t get the meat, just the potatoes, but the woman still spooned unknown meat sauce all over it. I still had tears in my eyes as I worked at the potatoes, but I was so hungry I couldn’t even eat, if that makes sense.
When we got back on the bus to go to Douentza, I didn’t feel very good. I started to feel nauseous. I just sat with my head on a pillow between my legs and dozed as the roads got worse and worse. It was the bumpiest, most pothole filled road I’ve ever been on. And one of my laptops was in my suitcase on top of the bus, which had been sitting in the heat for two days.
Bamako-Douentza, Part I
Saturday June 7th
I had to get up at 7:30 to get ready and meet Hamadoun Ouguelem, a Tommo-So speaking linguist in Bamako. He was very boisterous and nice, though sometimes understanding Malian French is a little hard. After not sleeping very well and a discussion with Jeff about all the various health problems that could happen, I found myself not feeling very well. I seem to have picked up a cough before I came (my suspicion is that it was given to me by my loving brother), and I was even losing my voice. So I went and lay down for a couple of hours.
Abbie was going to go to the market for me to pick up some things, but it turned out that most of the buses going back that day were full from all the Dogon heading north and the only tickets we could get were on this sort of fly-by-night bus leaving at 3. Jeff was concerned that they wouldn’t be able to take all of our luggage, so we just needed to get over there.
Though in hindsight, I’m not sure what the big rush was, since we just ended up going and sitting at a restaurant for two hours having sodas and food before even heading to the bus area. We got there around 3, paid to have our luggage taken, then proceeded to stand there in the heat, surrounded by people selling stuff until 7 when the bus actually left. Now, unlike India where people hawk things and won’t leave you alone, Mali has been great. People come over and try to sell you watches, juice, cloth, but they do that to everyone, and when you say no, they leave you alone. What a concept! Despite the heat and me worrying about running out of clean water, it was all right.
The bus was full to capacity with a ton of stuff strapped to the top. Of course, no air conditioning. In fact, the only windows that open are little slits above the big windows. So it was hot as hell in there, but once we got moving, there was a slight breeze. The bus would make all of these eternally long, inexplicable stops, and it was dark by the time we were actually moving any distance.
It was beautiful for a while, though. A million stars in the sky, lightning on the distant horizon, ghosts of unknown trees passing on the flat landscape. And then we broke down.
I had to get up at 7:30 to get ready and meet Hamadoun Ouguelem, a Tommo-So speaking linguist in Bamako. He was very boisterous and nice, though sometimes understanding Malian French is a little hard. After not sleeping very well and a discussion with Jeff about all the various health problems that could happen, I found myself not feeling very well. I seem to have picked up a cough before I came (my suspicion is that it was given to me by my loving brother), and I was even losing my voice. So I went and lay down for a couple of hours.
Abbie was going to go to the market for me to pick up some things, but it turned out that most of the buses going back that day were full from all the Dogon heading north and the only tickets we could get were on this sort of fly-by-night bus leaving at 3. Jeff was concerned that they wouldn’t be able to take all of our luggage, so we just needed to get over there.
Though in hindsight, I’m not sure what the big rush was, since we just ended up going and sitting at a restaurant for two hours having sodas and food before even heading to the bus area. We got there around 3, paid to have our luggage taken, then proceeded to stand there in the heat, surrounded by people selling stuff until 7 when the bus actually left. Now, unlike India where people hawk things and won’t leave you alone, Mali has been great. People come over and try to sell you watches, juice, cloth, but they do that to everyone, and when you say no, they leave you alone. What a concept! Despite the heat and me worrying about running out of clean water, it was all right.
The bus was full to capacity with a ton of stuff strapped to the top. Of course, no air conditioning. In fact, the only windows that open are little slits above the big windows. So it was hot as hell in there, but once we got moving, there was a slight breeze. The bus would make all of these eternally long, inexplicable stops, and it was dark by the time we were actually moving any distance.
It was beautiful for a while, though. A million stars in the sky, lightning on the distant horizon, ghosts of unknown trees passing on the flat landscape. And then we broke down.
The trip into Bamako
Friday June 6th
After finally getting on the plane to Paris, I landed and had to kick around Charles de Gaul for about 6 hours until the plane to Bamako left. Luckily, I was feeling so jetlagged and crappy from the previous flight that I just napped in a chair for about half of it. When I finally went to board the airline, I handed the woman what I believed to be my boarding pass, and she said it wasn’t a ticket, I needed a ticket. Now, when I was in Cincinnati, I had the gate agent put my frequent flyer number in for the flights, and for some reason she took my boarding passes and reissued me new ones, something about new seats or something. The pass for the Bamako flight said FLIGHT COUPON NEEDED, but she said that didn’t mean anything, it was just because it was an AirFrance flight and they were a partner airline. Same thing, when I got off the plane in Paris and had an AirFrance guy check my gate, he said the thing was fine. But this lady was not convinced. She said I couldn’t get on the flight. I sort of flipped out at her, after having already missed the flight the day before, and after calling Delta and looking things up on the computer, she finally let me through. Needless to say, another tense moment.
The flight itself was uneventful. The plane was nearly empty so I got to stretch out on my row and just watch the endless waves of the Sahara pass below. When I landed, I got my baggage without hassle and met Jeff, Abbie, and Minkailou, Jeff’s assistant, outside of the airport. It was great to have people there to greet you. I even felt pretty awake! We grabbed a taxi back to the SIL guesthouse where we were staying. SIL is this missionary linguistics organization, but there guesthouse was very nice. It even had internet, though PangolinWatch was staked out as a dangerous site or something and they blocked it. Thus the delayed arrival announcement.
After showering, we headed out to see Toumani Diabate’s orchestra play at this restaurant/night club. He wasn’t actually there and the orchestra (of guitar, this Malian harp instrument that’s like a giant thumb piano, can’t think of the name, drums, etc.) started playing late, but we got some sort of kabob and fries and relaxed in the cool night air. The music was good, I couldn’t see the kabob so I took a meat leap of faith, and all was well. Headed back to the guesthouse after midnight through air smelling of cigarettes, sewage, and fuel, and proceeded to have my jetlag keep me up until after 3.
After finally getting on the plane to Paris, I landed and had to kick around Charles de Gaul for about 6 hours until the plane to Bamako left. Luckily, I was feeling so jetlagged and crappy from the previous flight that I just napped in a chair for about half of it. When I finally went to board the airline, I handed the woman what I believed to be my boarding pass, and she said it wasn’t a ticket, I needed a ticket. Now, when I was in Cincinnati, I had the gate agent put my frequent flyer number in for the flights, and for some reason she took my boarding passes and reissued me new ones, something about new seats or something. The pass for the Bamako flight said FLIGHT COUPON NEEDED, but she said that didn’t mean anything, it was just because it was an AirFrance flight and they were a partner airline. Same thing, when I got off the plane in Paris and had an AirFrance guy check my gate, he said the thing was fine. But this lady was not convinced. She said I couldn’t get on the flight. I sort of flipped out at her, after having already missed the flight the day before, and after calling Delta and looking things up on the computer, she finally let me through. Needless to say, another tense moment.
The flight itself was uneventful. The plane was nearly empty so I got to stretch out on my row and just watch the endless waves of the Sahara pass below. When I landed, I got my baggage without hassle and met Jeff, Abbie, and Minkailou, Jeff’s assistant, outside of the airport. It was great to have people there to greet you. I even felt pretty awake! We grabbed a taxi back to the SIL guesthouse where we were staying. SIL is this missionary linguistics organization, but there guesthouse was very nice. It even had internet, though PangolinWatch was staked out as a dangerous site or something and they blocked it. Thus the delayed arrival announcement.
After showering, we headed out to see Toumani Diabate’s orchestra play at this restaurant/night club. He wasn’t actually there and the orchestra (of guitar, this Malian harp instrument that’s like a giant thumb piano, can’t think of the name, drums, etc.) started playing late, but we got some sort of kabob and fries and relaxed in the cool night air. The music was good, I couldn’t see the kabob so I took a meat leap of faith, and all was well. Headed back to the guesthouse after midnight through air smelling of cigarettes, sewage, and fuel, and proceeded to have my jetlag keep me up until after 3.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Off to a bad start...
So you know how I said the last post would be the last one from the US? Well, not quite right. I'm stuck in Cincinnati.
Wouldn't it just be my luck for tornadoes to be going through Cincinnati right at the time I was supposed to land. I was in a small jet, the kind with two seats on each side, and we circled for a while, then we had to land in Louisville because we wouldn't have enough fuel. At that point, the entire flight crew had timed out, but luckily they flew anyway, though it didn't help me any. We landed in Cincinnati at around 8:10. I got off the plane and ran all the way to the gate in the next terminal, just to be intercepted by a Delta agent saying the Paris flight had left. Abbie was on it, I was not.
To make matters worse, in my panic, I left my CD wallet and travel pillow at one of the gates and didn't realize it until later, so I had to go back through security to this distant terminal to get them, which luckily I was able to do.
The earliest they can get me out is the same flight today, but now I've lost my travel companion. And I have to sit in Cincinnati until 7:30PM tonight. So many other people missed connections too. I think this hotel is populated entirely by people from the airport, and the only restaurant, a couple hotels down, was the same. I had a beer and hung out with a couple guys whose flight to Grand Rapids was canceled and a girl who missed her connection to Frankfurt, and we commiserated.
After not a very good night's sleep, it will be back to the airport at 1, then maybe an airport floor nap before my flight? We shall see.
Anyhow, not the best start, but it can only get better from here, right?
Wouldn't it just be my luck for tornadoes to be going through Cincinnati right at the time I was supposed to land. I was in a small jet, the kind with two seats on each side, and we circled for a while, then we had to land in Louisville because we wouldn't have enough fuel. At that point, the entire flight crew had timed out, but luckily they flew anyway, though it didn't help me any. We landed in Cincinnati at around 8:10. I got off the plane and ran all the way to the gate in the next terminal, just to be intercepted by a Delta agent saying the Paris flight had left. Abbie was on it, I was not.
To make matters worse, in my panic, I left my CD wallet and travel pillow at one of the gates and didn't realize it until later, so I had to go back through security to this distant terminal to get them, which luckily I was able to do.
The earliest they can get me out is the same flight today, but now I've lost my travel companion. And I have to sit in Cincinnati until 7:30PM tonight. So many other people missed connections too. I think this hotel is populated entirely by people from the airport, and the only restaurant, a couple hotels down, was the same. I had a beer and hung out with a couple guys whose flight to Grand Rapids was canceled and a girl who missed her connection to Frankfurt, and we commiserated.
After not a very good night's sleep, it will be back to the airport at 1, then maybe an airport floor nap before my flight? We shall see.
Anyhow, not the best start, but it can only get better from here, right?
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Last night
Well, this is it. My last installment from the US (until August or so). Tomorrow is the big day. I will be flying of Minneapolis at 3:30, then going from Cincinnati and Paris to finally arrive in Bamako at 8:20 local time. For the record, Mali is five hours ahead of CST, so actually not that far away (timezone-wise).
Nearly everything is packed, save for my computers, which I continue to wrestle with. Turns out, trying to copy music from the Mac to the PC is not a given.
If I hadn't mentioned it before, I will be flying over with Abbie tomorrow, a grad student from Indiana who spent a few years in Mali in the PeaceCorps. Talking to her on the phone tonight made me feel a thousand times better about going, enough for me to be able to say I am actually excited! Excited is an improvement from terrified.
I will be able to get some mail at a mailbox in Sevare, on the way to Mopti (though how frequently? Who knows), which is the biggest city in my area. Feel free (read as: Please God) send me letters, packages, a napkin with a doodle, anything.
L McPherson, sous couvert J Heath, BP 48 Sévaré, Région de Mopti, MALI
And of course, drop me an e-mail or a blog comment anytime. I will hopefully get an internet cafe routine up and running in the near future--God forbid I be away from my e-mail for more than 15 minutes at a time.
Those pangolins better watch out, because me and my camera are going to be over there huntin' in T - 41 hours.
Nearly everything is packed, save for my computers, which I continue to wrestle with. Turns out, trying to copy music from the Mac to the PC is not a given.
If I hadn't mentioned it before, I will be flying over with Abbie tomorrow, a grad student from Indiana who spent a few years in Mali in the PeaceCorps. Talking to her on the phone tonight made me feel a thousand times better about going, enough for me to be able to say I am actually excited! Excited is an improvement from terrified.
I will be able to get some mail at a mailbox in Sevare, on the way to Mopti (though how frequently? Who knows), which is the biggest city in my area. Feel free (read as: Please God) send me letters, packages, a napkin with a doodle, anything.
L McPherson, sous couvert J Heath, BP 48 Sévaré, Région de Mopti, MALI
And of course, drop me an e-mail or a blog comment anytime. I will hopefully get an internet cafe routine up and running in the near future--God forbid I be away from my e-mail for more than 15 minutes at a time.
Those pangolins better watch out, because me and my camera are going to be over there huntin' in T - 41 hours.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
More about pangolins
As I seem to have been getting away from my pangolin theme, let me take this moment to return to it with this video:
Pangolin video
Not only is it narrated by David Attenborough, but it's also full of wonderful pangolin footage and facts. One fact that I just learned that was not included in this video is that the pangolin is the only mammal, I believe, that does not have teeth. Go figure.
Pangolin video
Not only is it narrated by David Attenborough, but it's also full of wonderful pangolin footage and facts. One fact that I just learned that was not included in this video is that the pangolin is the only mammal, I believe, that does not have teeth. Go figure.
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